Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
A/N: Sorry for the really late update. Read rate and review! Thanks.
"Oh, will you shut up!?" Rita roared from her single bed. The incessant bawling paused abruptly for a moment. Rita moaned in relief. Her dreamless sleep potions had run out of stock - unsurprisingly, due to the month's daily usage of it. The apocathery hag of an owner had spitefully spat in her face when she had attempted to purchase more of them, refusing to sell her any. Again, this was no surprise, seeing that she had previously written an article warning readers of the low quality potions she sold in Diagon Alley. The article was true, and she would never have crawled to the unhygienic joke of a shop if she had not been truly desperate. So now she had no choice but to put up with it and wait for her ordered batch of potions to arrive in a month's time.
Three days and four nights. After three days and four nights of sleeplessness, of tossing and turning in her bed sheet, eyes painfully wide open, unable to find reprieve from the stressful life as a mother, perhaps - just perhaps, she could finally rest in peace. Rita closed her eyes, feeling her eyelids - cool from exposure to the abnormally chilly summer air - soothe her eyes like a salve applied on a burn. The ever present fatigue in her aching muscles loosened.
All the tension stretched taut from the past few days was steadily released with every breathe flowing out of her lungs. Slowly, the frustrated and spasmodic rate of her breathes slowed, indicating that she was slipping into sleep. Rita's head unconsciously burrowed deeper into her soft pillow beside the headboard. Soon, she had completely escaped her hectic life in the real world and was drifting amongst the smoggy darkness of dreams. She had zero intention of ever waking up.
"Waaaa! Waaaaaaa!" Harry's aggravating cries from the conjured mattress at the foot of her bed jolted her from her sweet, sweet sleep.
"What now?!" Rita jumped out of her cushy bed cover and screamed into the bundled things's pink and exhausted face, ignoring the fact that Harry could comprehend none of what she had just said in her dishevelled frenzy.
.
.
.
Rita was having a meltdown.
"Arghhh!" Rita screamed at the sight of her horrifying reflection in the mirror. Sagging eye bags were hanging unattractively from each eye and her face greasy and gaunt with an ashen pallor, as if she had seen a ghost. Even worse, precious her hair was a tangled knot of strands. Overall, she looked like a cross between Severus Snape and a panda. Both palms rushed up and smacked a cheek. She pulled her cheeks down and slid to her hard marble bathroom floor. Her feet were numb to the cold tiles, and her eyes were staring glassily the aquamarine themed bathroom providing her shelter from the Harry, the maddeningly needy, attention seeking baby.
"Noooooo!"
.
.
.
Rita was convinced that Harry was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named reincarnated. She knew from word passing round in some rowdy pubs she frequented that it was bad luck to speak of such. Voldemort had been vanquished after eleven years of suffering, war and bloodshed, thus one wanted the dark lord revived and for those days of suffering to continue again. But what did she care? It was a mere superstition. Nothing would stop her from speaking her mind. Freedom of speech and all that rot the American wizards spouted nowadays. Plus, who would dare to stop her?
Rita knew she held more power than most of her pea brained ilk could ever hope for, though she was but a witch with a stingy, cheapskate boss. She wasn't filthy rich, like her snobby old dorm mate Malfoy. She didn't have high standing, like Cornelius the bumbling, fumbling moron. But she had a readership. Thousands of wizards and witches who read her works on a daily basis, and more importantly, trusted her. Right now, if she so wished to, she could publish an article unveiling every dirty not-so-little secret of the Malfoys. The dark artefacts stuffed in their drawing room, once raided by aurors persuaded to by their wives and mothers, was sure to defame them and throw them onto the street in an instant.
But the political backlash from Cornelius his dearest friend would be too troublesome to deal with. She wouldn't have time to put on her make-up, go for her facials and manicures if there were court orders impeding her.
Harry was going to kill her one day. She knew that he had it out for her, from his avada kedavra green eyes that would eerily watch her crossing the room with quickening steps. She knew it from the chill down her spine she would get whenever he touched her, and the unnaturally warm feeling in her chest whenever his chubby fingers grabbed her hand and he tilted his head just so. That he was attempting to murder her by burning her heart out. (The only reason why she had survived for so long was because she would immediately snatch her hand away before he experimentally increased the heat. )She knew it from his angelic smile and adorable way he reached for her to pick him up, and how she would smile and comply to his wishes that he was manipulating her. She knew from the way she would happily do feed him, bathe him, clothe him and need to interact with him that he was controlling her, and pulling at her strings and actions like a master puppeteer. Somehow, he had managed to cast a weak - almost imperceptible but still existing - imperious curse on her that she couldn't manage to shake off no matter what she tried.
So with a dangerously high amount of reluctance and attachment to it, she had decided to get rid of It.
.
.
.
In the dead of the night, a shadowy cloaked figure rushed towards the doorsteps of the immaculate - freakishly clean - number four privet drive. "Ouch!" the figure hissed when - He? She? - tripped on the hem of her tattered, moth eaten black outfit. Still, the figure continued on. The figure emotionlessly deposited previously hidden basket at the white painted from door with a regularly polished and shiny number four sign hung at the centre.
Cloak billowing behind, the figure left without a backwards glance.
